This invention relates in general to movable partitioning systems and in particular to such systems which are relocatable and interchangeably configured for wall panels, acoustical screens, glass panels, doors and suspended ceilings.
The concept of partitioning systems whereby an open area is segmented into individual compartment-like regions has been utilized for several years in large office complexes as well as in factories, stores and related businesses. Structurally, the concept entails the use of wall panels which are securely joined together and anchored in place between the floor and ceiling. Although a floor track or bracket is commonly employed regardless of the height of the wall panels, a ceiling runner is frequently found when the wall panels are full height.
The choice of wall panel material, while important from a structural aspect to those required to fabricate and install the panels, is equally important to the office personnel who are affected daily by such factors as durability, acoustical and fire-retardant properties and the aesthetics of color and texture. Partitions come in a variety of common materials such as wood, aluminum, steel and plastic laminants. While these materials have strength and durability advantages, they are quite inflexible dimensionally, once fabricated and delivered to the installation site. Minor variations in floor-to-ceiling dimensions or length dimensions to enclose a space result in a less-than-perfect fit or mismatch. If this mismatch is severe enough, a new panel must be ordered or the existing panel reworked. Although field rework is more desirable from a cost and time standpoint than factory rework or redo, and the ability to rework a panel eliminates waste of ordered panels which do not fit. However, field rework of aluminum and steel is difficult, at best, because of the machine tool requirements.
One material which is believed to be optimal for partitioning systems is gypsum and by laminating two face boards together spaced apart by core boards, a durable, rigid panel is created. Gypsum is excellent in its sound control and fire-retardant properties and when vinyl covered, results in a most pleasing interior design medium. One of the most beneficial factors to the installers is the extreme ease that gypsum panels can be dimensionally altered. If a little needs to be taken off of an edge, on-site rework is extremely easy using only conventional hand tools. The primary concern with the use of gypsum wall panels is the inability of the walls to support heavy surface-applied loads which create pull-out forces on the vertical surface. The properties of the material must also be considered when joining techniques are involved. Consequently, the joining technique between panels, whether straight runs (180.degree.) or angled joints (less than 180.degree. included angle), must be configured to compensate for lesser strength of the gypsum material in order to provide the requisite strength and rigidity of a suitable partitioning system.
Partitioning systems generally provide a quick and economical means to convert an open space into a particular office and officette configuration which can be uniquely designed with almost limitless variety. Recently, two concepts somewhat new to the technology of partitioning systems have come into being. The first concept involves the use of "hang-on" furniture components, such as desks, tables, bookcases, etc. As the name implies, these furniture items are literally hung onto the wall by means of slotted vertical standards and a supporting bracket arrangement often supplied as part of the furniture items or added to the furniture items. This type of furniture does not have legs or similar members in order to enable the furniture to rest on the floor surface and thus, the floor (often carpet) is free and unencumbered for easy vacuuming, shampooing, or waxing without the necessity to move the furniture. Currently, aluminum and steel partitioning systems which incorporate the slotted standards concept do so as part of the panel-to-panel joint and the formed joint which normally includes a locking post which is preslotted for this purpose. If hang-ons are not used, a cover piece snaps into and over the not-used standards for a more pleasing appearance. The preslotting of every locking post entails a greater per-piece cost due to the additional machining work needed to incorporate slots and the need for separate cover pieces to cover the unused standards. The inefficiency of this method is heightened by a realization that quite often only a few of the panel-to-panel joints will be utilized for hang-on applications and thus, a majority of these preslotted locking posts are not utilized for their intended function.
Laminated gypsum panels of the type discussed above do not use a locking post and thus a requirement for such gypsum panels and desirable for other panels is to provide a specially configured slotted standard which is suitable for selective utilization only when hang-on furniture is involved and only at those locations where the furniture will be positioned. This selective utilization provides an efficiency over present aluminum and steel partitioning systems and is particularly adaptable to laminated gypsum panels, as will be apparent from the descriptions which follow. The limited load-supporting strength of gypsum panels, as previously mentioned, necessitates that the joint between panels be utilized for support of the slotted standards which in turn support the hang-on furniture. The present invention discloses such a slotted standard concept which is suitable for the above objective and comprises one unique feature of a larger partitioning system disclosed herein.
The second recent concept involves the marrying of a full-height wall panel partition system with acoustical screen panels. Acoustical screens are often employed in crowded work areas to visually and acoustically shield one work area from adjacent areas. Very often the acoustical screens do not extend from floor to ceiling but are only about half height. This concept provides additional privacy, but more importantly reduces the transmission of noises between various work stations. When a large area is being designed into smaller areas incorporating wall panel partitions and acoustical screens, an inefficiency presently results. Those contractors which offer installation of a wall panel partitioning system do not provide compatible hardware for combination with acoustical screens because such hardware does not exist. Similarly, those subcontractors involved in the arrangement and mounting of acoustical screens do not offer designs which are compatible with wall panel partitioning systems. This inefficiency is the result of design and dimensional incompatibilities between the two systems and the lack of interchangeable, multifunction components adaptable to both types of panels. At the present time, the prior art technology does not reveal any wall panel partitioning systems which can be mutually assembled with acoustical screens in a virtually unlimited number of configurations. Further, the dimensional characteristics of wall panels are not presently compatible with acoustical screens and vice versa. Clearly, if a composite system assembly could be devised in order to enable a virtually unlimited variety of wall panel and acoustical screen configurations using select component parts from a basic set of standardized parts, not only would dimensional compatibility exist, but one contractor could be responsible for the entire job. Although this is definitely cost effective, it also results in an overall system which appears uniform and consistent rather than a hodge podge of miscellaneous parts that are not compatible.
The present invention discloses such a partitioning system involving structural wall panels, glass panels, acoustical screens, doors and ceilings; all of which are easily assembled using selected multifunction components. The number of possibilities is virtually endless and the speed of system assembly results in extremely rapid office and officette construction. The disclosed system provides the various advantages previewed above and is believed to be novel and not anticipated nor rendered obvious by any prior art concepts.